EUIV - Development Diary - 14th of January 2020

[Stronghold]

It's great that you're trying to improve the big problems of this game. I've to see it in action to be sure if these changes are good enough.
Less gamey absolutism sounds great

But now that most of the mechanics are shown, can we expect the dev clash to start in the coming weeks?

 

[Brianus]

Stratocratic Administration

• Republican version of Prussian Monarchy
• -0.02 Monthly war Exhaustion
• +0.05 Monthly militarized Society
• -0.075 Monthly Autonomy change
• -0.5 Republican Tradition
• -10 Max Absolutism
• Generals become Rulers

Will this mean that republics with this reform will have militarism, with the same modifiers as prussia?

 

[Mik_C]

Thanks for the dev diary, there are a lot of interesting changes. I think governent needed more love and deepth and this is a very good start. (Although we will not know if it improves the gameplay until we see it in practice)

On the naval side, coastal defenses took my attention: shouldn't they also provide a protection againts coastal raiding?

 

[Heiliges Thüringens Reich]

One great weakness to the Monastic Order government as oppose to Leading Clergy is that Holy Orders are locked to rank-1. However, at tier-6 of the reform tree, Monastic Orders will be able to choose from an array of reforms that will allow them to freely switch government rank like any other nation, and unlock a few perks and mechanics previously unavailable to Theocracies.

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Teutonic Order Kingdom? Teutonic Order... EMPIRE?
Yes. YES! YEEEEESSSSS!!

THE IMPERIAL CRUSADE IS ON, BITCHES!

Now, please tell us special missions will be given to TO/LO someday and I can die a happy man. Oh, and allowing those 2 to also become Crusader States, like the Hospitallers can. Pretty please?

 

[Commonblob]

I love the balance changes, especially the trade company change which will make the game much more sandbox. Can't wait for patch 1.30.

 

[AnssiA]

With the nerf to trade companies it would be nice to be bit more flexible with them. For example, perhaps allow trade companies of your religion on other continents? (Ottomans in India and East Indies, Ottomans in Africa)

 

[Aeroclub]

@Groogy

If you're touching upon the military, do you guys have any plans to make CAV more relevant in mid-late game? By allowing it to attack any unit in the line, for example...

 

[PhoenixG]

@Groogy

The new rules for where you can create Trade Companies are as follows:

• Province religion must be of a different religious group than the owning nation

Does that like Ottoman can't create TC in east Africa/Indonesia? As those are most sunni land. And how does it interact with propagate religion?

We also have the Absolutism Cheese. As it often is pointed out Absolutism is the main culprit of Monarchies strength over Republics, it doesn’t help that it is a very exploitable mechanic. We do not want to nerf absolutism, nor change the core of the feature as it does what we want it to do. However, we will be addressing the cheese of how you generate it. And we are aware some of the largest problems here is in regards on how you build up your Absolutism through exploiting various mechanics that has to do with Rebels.

No that is not the main culprit why Monarchy is "better" than Republic. The main culprit is the difference in the max absolutism cap.

 

[Groogy]

With the nerf to trade companies it would be nice to be bit more flexible with them. For example, perhaps allow trade companies of your religion on other continents? (Ottomans in India and East Indies, Ottomans in Africa)

That would allow Mamluks to have Trade Companies in Arabia.

 

[Romanus91PL]

Now when you are reworking naval warfare I am wondering if are you going to change the AI behaviour regarding creating "infinite military access corridor". For example if I play France and I will be in war with AI Ottomans, will the AI still make infinite military accesses through neutral countries to come to me or will it use it's navy to make naval invasion's?

 

[Groogy]

@Groogy

If you're touching upon the military, do you guys have any plans to make CAV more relevant in mid-late game? By allowing it to attack any unit in the line, for example...

Been thinking about it but nothing concrete right now

 

[firezatswill9]

As is, 3500 at max tech is very low, especially when the old world will end with about 22-24000 dev in a normal game. Meaning that, if one were to form Rome (something relatively easy to do), you'll be over the max limit with ease. Despite your insistence, it sounds a lot like TerrCorr, but arguably worse due to the fact that it will also affect your admin efficiency, something that TerrCorr did not. If your intention is to keep on arbitrarily hampering the player's expansion rate beyond what already arbitrary factors we have (Overextension being the primary one), then congratulations, you're still forcing us to play the PDX Approved Way™ because not doing so is literally noncompetitive. I would seriously suggest a deeper look at this, this just screams "bad" to me.

Absolutism cheese isn't really an issue with regards to absolutism and Republics, that seems like a dev perceived issue to me. The issue is that republics are absolutely fucked once the age of reformations ends. -20 to -50 max absolutism literally kills their competitiveness, which was already more or less destroyed once monarchs could disinherit their heirs and abdicate the throne, meaning that even their monarch point advantage was also lost. As is republics are good only if you're a Revolutionary Republic, which hardly counts.

 

[Me_]

As I understand, the 69 new reforms are for both the Emperor and the Dharma owners. Will there be more reforms just for the Emperor owners e.g. ones tied to the Emperor-specific mechanics?

 

[Piotrzeci]

Been thinking about it but nothing concrete right now

Well Arumba in his video about Cav pointed out some things that could be done, with the gist being:

• Improve the way units are deployed, so maximum number of units flanks and Cav has a priority over Inf.
• Update the battle line each phase, so Cav gradually moves to the center as it runs out of targets.
  Since a single battle is a serie of fights over a longer period of time, it makes sense for units to deploy correctly for each engagement.

 

[Pyoro]

Bit confused about the missionary cost thing. Seems like a small thing in this huge dev diary - and, sure, I've observed the AI not converting provinces problem too, but at the same time - every EU game I play ends up with most nations swimming in ducats. How does it make sense to make things cheaper? Shouldn't instead everything become much more expensive? ^^;

 

[iClipse]

Loving this dev diary. I like that becoming bigger will increase AE and reduce relations. In its current form coalitions are a thing in the early game, and then after a certain point they're suddenly nonexistant. The current balance change will change that.

A few things I'm not sure about:
- Having a different religion in Trade Companies is a bit weird. So you can't convert first anymore and then add to TC for extra reduced unrest (from tolerance). It also means if you go for One faith, you can't use trade companies. The Muslim trade policy is suddenly also useless now.

I also need to check my knowledge of 'overseas'. Does it mean that the Hansa can make a trade company of Norway, but the moment they conquer Denmark not anymore? It'll make very weird scenarios in game where every time you conquer the land between your trade company and your capital/full cores, suddenly you lose all your trade company investments.

Also the admin efficiency malus will hurt late game conquering A LOT. Especially since 100% isn't the upper limit. Will it even be possible to WC anymore? Would need to see it tested ingame. If going for WC, admin ideas as opener is then probably mandatory and your conquests will be more spread out over time, rather than 'before absolutism, conquer key areas, after absolutism conquer the 90% rest of the world'.

Yeah sure, but even then by the time you reach 100% over your limit you've literally already won the game in singleplayer these modifiers do nothing man they have no effect on any playstyle besides making stabbing hurt a little more I guess? Even then most of your stab should come from events so it won't matter

Yeah, because truce stabbing isn't a thing to finish of the last countries. If you're paying 300 admin power instead of 100 for starting every war it makes a difference. Especially with the increased Admin Eff.

Yeah sure, but even then by the time you reach 100% over your limit you've literally already won the game in singleplayer these modifiers do nothing man they have no effect on any playstyle besides making stabbing hurt a little more I guess? Even then most of your stab should come from events so it won't matter

That would be true for the current version of the game, but you're forgetting several things: Mercenaries in current form are going out of the game. Infinite manpower won't be a thing anymore. The increased AE will make expansion more difficult due to coalitions. Additionally having -15 (or so)% admin efficiency makes a big difference. You're saying it like admin efficiency is a useless modifier, while it's THE most important modifier in the game late game.

 

[FrogCrusher]

@Groogy
About TC and religion, I would like to mention this potentiel problem: If you did not forget, CoC owners are able to put trade focus on "converting" in TC land when they are muslim and have more than 50% of Trade Power. So, with religion restriction to built up TC land, we have the following side effects:

• If a muslim country convert through this way in the trade company provinces, it will not be able to add further provinces
• If as Mamluk, Ottomans already converted India with this mechanic, I cannot have India provinces in TC
  
• If Asian Muslim country creates TC in Europe, will he be able to convert Europe to Muslim with this mechanic?

To avoid Mamluk having TC in Arabia, maybe you can lock TC land by culture group or distance to capital, or...?

 

[Ornlu Wolfjarl]

@Groogy making states cause more AE is ridiculous. You want player's to make choices, but no player will choose more AE. Increasing maintenance, stability cost, institution cost, tech/idea cost would be more in line with the difficulties of managing a large empire.

 

[Piotrzeci]

What about making it so a province has to be of different culture group and not accepted instead of "different religious group" for TC?
Religions can be really diverse and one state can have even 3 different ones (Cambodia I think has Hindu, Theravada and Animist), but cultures are harder to change and more tied to regions (and also more define a region not connected to your homeland).

 

[Zohtun]

I hope Lithuania isn't forgotten about in this change. With a piddly base 100 admin cap (as a duchy) it's going to have a really bad day once this rolls out...